This course will treat democracy as a felt form of life which emerged historically alongside Kant’s discovery that judgments of taste cannot be justified cognitively or ethically. Democratic culture and modern aesthetic reflection are born at the same moment. Thinking of democracy in this way might make us more sanguine about its prospects, even in the face of current events that tempt us to conclude that politics and culture are being wholly determined by runaway forms of techno-capitalism. Readings will include works by Kant, Hegel, Diderot, Dewey, Benjamin, DuBois, Weil, Rancière and others.